page_title: Great Lent
section_title: Sixth Week
hierarchical_section_title: Great Lent / Outline / The Great Forty Days / Sixth Week
caption_attribution_description: икона 15 века, новгородская школа, Новгород, Музей истории и искусства
context_page_description: Great Lent, or the Great Fast, is the most important fasting season in the church year in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Byzantine Rite Lutheran Churches and the Eastern Catholic Churches, which prepares Christians for the greatest feast of the church year, Pascha.
  Great Lent shares its origins with the Lent of Western Christianity, and has many similarities with it. There are some differences in the timing of Lent and how it is practiced, both liturgically in the public worship of the church and individually.
  One difference between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity is the calculation of the date of Easter. Most years, the Eastern Pascha falls after the Western Easter, and it may be as much as five weeks later; occasionally, the two dates coincide. Like Western Lent, Great Lent itself lasts for forty days, but in contrast to the West, Sundays are included in the count.
  Great Lent officially begins on Clean Monday, seven weeks before Pascha, and runs for 40 contiguous days, concluding with the Presanctified Liturgy on Friday of the Sixth Week. The next day is called Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.
context_section_description: During the Sixth Week the Lenten services are served as they were during the second and third weeks.
  Great Lent ends at Vespers on the evening of the Sixth Friday, and the Lenten cycle of Old Testament readings is brought to an end (Genesis ends with the account of the burial of Joseph, who is a type of Christ). At that same service, the celebration of Lazarus Saturday begins. The resurrection of Lazarus is understood as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection of Jesus, and many of the Resurrection hymns normally chanted on Sunday (and which will be replaced the next day with hymns for Palm Sunday) are chanted at Matins on the morning of Lazarus Saturday.
  Palm Sunday differs from the previous Sundays in that it is one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church. None of the normal Lenten material is chanted on Palm Sunday, and fish, wine and oil are permitted in the trapeza. The blessing of palms (or pussywillow) takes place at Matins on Sunday morning, and everyone stands holding palms and lit candles during the important moments of the service.
  This is especially significant at the Great Entrance during the Divine Liturgy on Palm Sunday morning, since liturgically that entrance recreates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The themes of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday are tied together, and some of the same hymns (including one of the apolytikia) are chanted on both days. The Holy Week services begin on the night of Palm Sunday, and the liturgical colours are changed from the festive hues of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday back to somber Lenten colours.
caption: Icon of the Raising of Lazarus (15th century, Novgorod school). In most icons of death, resurrection and baptism, the gates of hades are visible in the background, as they are here.
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